David Cousens is correct. Term limits have apparently done their work at the legislature: the membership of today’s Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources includes no one who was around when Maine’s historic (and successful) lobster-management rules were adopted in 1996. Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, pointed out at a recent hearing on a string of bills that would effectively gut Maine’s system of management zones, apprenticeships and limited entry, that the bills mean “there’s no historic memory” on the committee.
What he didn’t say – but which we sincerely hope is the case – is that perceptive committee members and other legislators will see this crop of bills as the special-interest legislation that they are. The appropriate response: kill them off to protect the integrity of a successful management system developed in a cooperative spirit after nearly 20 years of hard work.